Information is powerful, and historical and cultural information can help us understand the world around us today. That’s why we built Google Arts & Culture—to put the world’s cultural treasures at anyone’s fingertips, and to help museums and other organizations share more of their diverse heritage with the world. So far we’ve partnered with more than 1,100 institutions to share 400,000+ artworks and 5 million photos, videos, manuscripts, and other documents of art, culture and history.

Today, ahead of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, we’re putting that platform to work sharing documents and artifacts in a new collection: American Democracy.

The American Democracy collection allows anyone with an internet connection to explore more than 70 exhibits and 2,500+ artifacts from 45 institutions across the United States—including the Constitutional Rights Foundation in Los Angeles, Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello, and 8 different Presidential Libraries. The exhibition is open for all at g.co/AmericanDemocracy and through the Google Arts & Culture mobile app for iOS and Android.

Knowledge of the past helps us understand the impact of our choices on the future. Every few years, American citizens are challenged with the question of how they want to be governed and to what end. With the American Democracy collection on Google Arts & Culture, we hope to make the history of those choices, and their outcomes, available to all.